You have to be a little bit careful when a member of the government of Vladimir Putin says she wants to send you to Siberia – particularly when the woman in question looks as though she won’t take “nyet” for an answer.

Her name is Alla Manilova (below) and she is Russia’s deputy minister of culture and the person charged with the daunting task of turning Russia into a country we want to visit. Her slightly worrying suggestion comes during the course of a lively exchange during her recent stay in London to promote the current Britain-Russia Year of Culture.

I shall return to the subject of Siberia later, but first things first: in just six days’ time, the eyes of the world will be turned towards Sochi, the resort on the Black Sea that is staging this year’s Winter Olympics.

The Sochi Games – dubbed “Putin’s Games” – are intended to showcase the new Russia to the world. As a PR exercise, however, the lead-up has to date been little short of disastrous. Leaving aside the appropriateness of staging a Winter Olympics in what is essentially a summer seaside resort, it has come in massively over budget – at $51 billion it is the most expensive winter games in history. It has been plagued by allegations of corruption and mistreatment of the thousands of labourers who have been drafted in to build its dazzling array of stadiums (a preposterous Potemkin village of the modern age). It has also thrown up other disturbing features concerning Putin’s Russia: from its treatment of homosexuals and ethnic minorities to its suppression of anyone – from the punk girl band Pussy Riot to Greenpeace activists in the Arctic – who dares to challenge it.

Like her boss, Manilova dismisses the criticism imperiously. “I don’t know what the British press is writing about Sochi – I am not living here – but the Olympics in Sochi will be a very special event,” she says. “The Games will be spectacular, they will be organised perfectly and everyone who comes will be made to feel welcome. The Olympic Games is a lady herself and she can answer all the questions. We just need to wait for it to happen.”

She may have a point. Once the Games start, interest will switch to the events – some of which, including the ski half-pipe and snowboard slopestyle – are being contested for the first time, and the performances of a British team that is in serious contention for medals.

To those who fear attacks by terrorists (not least the Islamist fighters of the North Caucasus), Manilova insists that, with 40,000 police and interior ministry troops forming a “ring of steel” around the venues, the Olympics will be “perfectly safe”.

As for homosexuals: “Of course they will feel comfortable. Nobody in Sochi cares about this issue!” (But then why would they? There are no homosexuals in Sochi, according to Anatoly Pakhomov, the mayor interviewed for the BBC’s Panorama programme this week.)

Whatever the outcome, the hosting of the Games will put Sochi – and Russia as a whole – in the spotlight (“Just as Peter the Great made St Petersburg Russia’s window on to Europe, Sochi will be the window on to Russia.”) And Manilova is convinced the Games will have a positive impact on the way in which the country is viewed as a tourist destination.

She admits that there is a long way to go. Unlike some of its erstwhile allies in eastern Europe – and the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – Russia remains a sleeping giant when it comes to tourism, a faraway, forbidding country still frequently perceived through the prism of Cold War antagonisms. Beyond Moscow, St Petersburg and the Trans-Siberian railway, Russia barely features on the radar of most British visitors, something which, given its immense size and diversity, is curious.

“We have never properly promoted tourism or let people know just what Russia has to offer,” Manilova says. “There has been an information vacuum, but that is going to change. The president has given us the goal of developing this segment. We are going to make this country tourist-friendly.”

At the moment, prospective visitors have to deal with a lack of information in English and a cumbersome, costly visa system. If they do go ahead, they will find most signs (including on the Moscow metro) in impenetrable Cyrillic. Practical initiatives aimed at rectifying this include the provision of an English-language version of the main website promoting tourism to Russia, strana.ru (intelligible only to Russian speakers) and the establishment of multilingual information booths and maps detailing nearby attractions in cities throughout the country – modelled on those already to be found in Manilova’s home town of St Petersburg.

The visa issue is perhaps the most problematic. At the moment British visitors need to pay at least £82.50 to enter Russia, and the procedure is slow and unwieldy. “It is even more difficult for us to get a visa to Britain,” retorts Manilova, “But we would like to improve it – on a reciprocal basis.”

One concrete change ahead is that from June 1 people wanting to stop in Russia in transit to destinations such as China will be able to stay for three days without a visa. And there will undoubtedly have to be an easing of restrictions in four years’ time when Russia hosts an even bigger sporting event, the football World Cup.

So, assuming a visitor has a visa and there is some linguistically-friendly signposting, which places in Russia would Manilova recommend?

“Siberia!” she says, without hesitation.

“Siberia is the best place for tourism in the world. There are sacred Shaman sites on Lake Baikal from which visitors return feeling 10 years younger. It is magical.”

For those seeking adventure of a more extreme kind, she suggests the far north-eastern region of Yakutia, where temperatures in the winter fall to -72C, where people somehow survive – and where, for sure, there isn’t a Starbucks in sight.

Then there is the republic of Altai: “A beautiful place with wonderfully clean air and almost untouched by civilisation. Here you can travel by kayak along crystal-clear freshwater rivers that flow straight from the mountains. This is virgin nature.”

Manilova is at her best when she goes off script (and off piste), and speaks straight from the famous Russian heart. There’s a passion and purity in her voice that piques my interest.